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Sunday, December 28, 2008

The House of Mirth...Great Expectations...The Magic Mountain...James Thurber...Gulliver's Travels...Little Women...Rabbit, Run...Friday Night Lights...Farewell to Arms...Crying of Lot 49...Good Man is Hard to Find...Behind the Scenes of the Museum...To the Lighthouse...Invisible Man...Native Son...A Bend in the River...Pale Fire...Appointment in Samarra...Lucky Jim...Light in August...Passage to India...Palace Walk...People's History of the United States...Sun Also Rises...That Night...Waiting for Snow in Havana...Arctic Dreams...Fire in the Lake...The Elegance of Hedgehogs...Emerson Essays...Short History of Tractors...Old Man and the Sea...Quartet in Autumn...The Sea...Flaubert's Parrot...Once and Future King...The Yearling...Of Mice and Men...Black Beauty...The BFG...Three Men in a Boat...Suitable Boy...Love in the Time of Cholera...Miss Lonelyhearts...Yacoubian Building...Snow...Sound of the Mountain...Moon and Sixpence...Portrait of the Artist

Going Here and ThereChina RoadVoyage Long and StrangeLost on Planet ChinaQueen of the RoadGhost Train to the Eastern StarZen and Now

If You Want Bleak...The Trick is to Keep BreathingAbsolutely True Diary of a Part-Time IndianOut of the DustLast Night at the LobsterOne-Handed CatchThe Thing About GeorgieI Know Why the Caged Bird SingsThe Things They CarriedOn My HonorThe RoadAcedia & Me

ChallengesPractically Perfect in Every WayHelping Me Help MyselfReading the QEDAround the World in 80 Dinners

LightGarden SpellsGuernseyDeweyWhen Will There Be Good News?

Newbery Books Sure to OffendDaniel BooneThe Story of MankindSmoky the Cowhorse

Wonderul Kids' BooksThe Hero and the CrownBecause of Winn-DixieA Single ShardAn American PlagueWinnie-the-PoohThe Pepins and their ProblemsJudy Moody Goes to Colege(Cybils choices to be announced at the end of this month)

Wish I Hadn't BotheredUndergroundNew EarthWishing YearArt of Racing in the RainZookeeper's Wife

Best Recent NonfictionRelentless PursuitSundays in AmericaBeautiful BoyDeweyNot Quite What I Was PlanningAn Exact ReplicaCactus EatersWhen a Crocodile Eats the SunReading the QEDListening is an Act of LoveProust and the SquidWhy We Hate Us

Best Recent FictionOlive KitteridgeMy Mistress's Sparrow is DeadSo Many Ways to BeginThe Reluctant FundamentalistLast Night at the LobserFire in the BloodUnaccustomed EarthThe Road

And...finally...

My Top Ten for 2008The Things They CarriedThings Fall ApartOne Hundred Years of SolitudeOlive KitteridgeMy Mistress's Sparrow is DeadRelentless PursuitBeautiful BoyWinnie-the-PoohWind in the WillowsNot Quite What I Was Planning

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Personal Days by Ed ParkIt was compared to Then We Came to the End, another book about the quirky world of office life.

The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby

The World is What It IsAn authorized biography of Naipaul.The review called it one of the best biographies ever written.

My Jesus Year by Benyamin CohenThe son of a rabbi wanders in search of his religious beliefs.

How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People (While They Are Still Alive)This one sounds like it was made for me.

Netherland by Joseph O'NeillOn almost every list.It initially didn't sound appealing to me, but if this many people love it....

The Post-American World

The Big Sort by Bill BishopBishop was at the Texas Book Festival, but I didn't get a chance to hear him talk. People are segregating themselves by education and interest and level of affluence, with consequences for America.

2666 by Roberto BolanoRave reviews everywhere for this book.It doesn't sound like one I'd like and it's very long...but still I'm intrigued.

Sea of Poppies by Amitav GhoshSetting in India.

The House at Sugar BeachHad this one from the library and gave up on it, too soon, I think now.

Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton

The Elegance of the HedgehogI bought this last week and I'm reading it next.

I also found these kids' books I want to read:

What the World Eats by Peter MenzelOne of my all-time favorite reads is Material World. I've always wanted to share this book with the kids at school. What the World Eats is a kid version of Menzel's Hungry Planet.

Little Brother by Cory DoctorowScience fiction-ish book about an apocalyptic world.

The Trouble Begins at 8: A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West by Sid FleischmanTwo reasons for reading this: Love Sid and read Roughing It this summer.

How I Learned Geography by Uri ShulevitzNazi Germany.

A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever

Adele & Simon in America

Wabi Sabi by Mark Reibstein

Anyone have any other books from best-of-2008 lists they are dying to read?

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Keep Your Eye on the Kid: The Early Years of Buster Keaton by Catherine Brighton

Two more Cybils read this week, leaving eight to go.

Keep Your Eye is the story of Buster Keaton's childhood and early days in film. It is told from a first person point of view, a more powerful way to take in someone's life, but also more difficult to write convincingly.

The pictures look like little movie clips. The illustrator effectively zooms in and zooms out just like a movie of a person's life might do.

Brighton, the author/illustrator, provides a nice source list and a list of movies for Keaton and also adds a short author note at the end about Keaton's life.

Ballots for Belva: The True Story of a Woman's Race for the Presidency by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen

If Hillary Clinton had won the nomination for president, this book would probably be on every library shelf in America.

It's a good book. Belva lived a big life. She went to law school despite terrible obstacles. She got her law degree despite terrible obstacles. She ran for president despite terrible obstacles.

She overcame the obstacles, time and again. What a great role model!

The book contains an extensive author's note and a selected bibliography along with a glossary.

3 More Picture Books

Up and Down the Andes: A Peruvian Festival Tale by Laurie Krebs and Aurelia Fronty

We in America seem to forget there are other countries, other people in the world.

We who are teachers should not forget this.

This book highlights the Peruvian festival held each year to honor the Sun God. The pictures and text combine to give children a little glimpse into the celebration that takes place.

The pictures are vibrant and show the colors and textures of the Peruvians who attend this celebration.

The author uses a long author note at the end of the book to explain more about the Festival of the Sun, other Peruvian festivals, a history of Peru, the people of Peru, Machu Picchu, the Andes, and cool facts about Peru.

I would rate this book a 4. Most children in the US have little exposure to Peru and this would be a welcome introduction.

Every Human Has Rights based on the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adapted by the United Nations sixty years ago. The atrocious violations of basic human rights by the Nazis during World War II shocked the world. A need for such a declaration was seen.

Sixty years later, reading over the list of thirty basic human rights, I am surprised to see both how fundamental they seem and how often they are ignored.

How different the world could be if countries around the world united together to ensure that all humans have these rights.

I will add this book to my school library collection.

We Are All Born Free: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Pictures What a beautiful book! The Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides the text and children's picture book authors from around the world provide the pictures.

I am so amazed that these basic human rights are not yet deemed valid for all peoples in the world. We continually see some humans are treated better than others. Sixty years have passed since these were adapted by the UN. Will they ever be universally adopted?

I will add this book to my school library collection.

2 Grownup Books

No Choirboy by Susan Kuklin

The true stories of young men who were sentenced to death as teenagers is the subject of this book. It is a brutal world, the life of a teenager on death row. How did these young men get there?

Most hardly remember the crime for which they were given the death sentence. Most show deep remorse. It seems obvious to me as a reader that all were immature and easily led.

It is a hard decision, I think: How do you appropriately punish young people who have done abominable things yet bear in mind their age?

And we must also hope to find a way to help these people back into productive lives or, at a minimum, find a way to keep others safe from them.

These are not happy stories. It would be interesting to see what teens might think of these stories.

French Milk by Lucy Knesley

I'd originally requested this book thinking I might share it with my eighteen-year-old niece who visited France last year with her mom.

After having read it, I think not.

While, for the most part, I enjoyed reading the fun combination of comic drawings and photographs detailing the author's month-long trip to France with her mom, I am always surprised to see books I'd see as for teens containing profanity and sex-references. I was surprised to see how blase Knisley seemed to be about the entire adventure.

I wish my niece had written this book. She'd have brought to the subject things I wish Knisley had: enthusiasm for the trip, a freshness of vision, a deeper look at France, greater appreciation for writing and art.

I liked best the way the graphics were laid out, in big, full-page rectangles instead of the usual small squares. The liked the juxtaposition of photos and drawings.